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Merry Muse
The Merry Muse
Paperback
First published January 1, 1959
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About the author
Eric Linklater
159 books25 followersEric Robert Russell Linklater was a Welsh-born Scottish writer of novels and short stories, military history, and travel books. For The Wind on the Moon, a children's fantasy novel, he won the 1944 Carnegie Medal from the Library Association for the year's best children's book by a British subject.
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Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
September 1, 2018
Another very readable Linklater.
I used to own a copy of ‘The Merry Muse’ (Burns’ collection of lewdnesses), but I grew tired of it, so the second hand market has had the pleasure of my copy’s company for many a year.
However, the idea that Linklater proposes, that a copy of ‘The Merry Muse’ turns up as part of the estate of Maxwell Arbuthnot’s life-denying dominie brother-in-law together with a sheaf of papers in Burns’ hand that appear to be poems of a libidinous originality of stupendous lubricity, tickled me pink. The publication date of 1959 must have made it a fruity sensation for a society on the verge of the 1960s and Penguin’s paperback publication of ‘Lady Chatterley’.
From this opening gambit proceeds an Ealing comedy styled in Linklater’s fluent, easy, playful prose and characterised by his appetite for comedic, as well as straight, characterisation. Max Arbuthnot is a self-satisfied, hedonistic and lusty barrister with as large an appetite for good wine and food as he has for extra-marital sex; Mr Greenshaw is a pedantic but conscientious librarian; Jessie Youghal, Max’s sister, is a repressed widow with a scarcely justifiable grudge against her brother, and is persistently shrill in pursuing Max’s promise to sell her copy of ‘The Merry Muses’ for £10,000 to secure her financial future; her sister, Annie, by contrast, has as much an appetite for living as her brother does. And then there are some shenanigans that go on between the angst-ridden poet/playwright, Hector Macrae, and Max’s married daughter, Jane, whose husband, Simon Telfer, is about to lead his Edinburgh regiment out to Malaysia. And all this is further complicated by Paula, Jane’s former beastly school prefect who is angling after becoming Max’s mistress...
Yet the comedy is not without its serious edge. Is Hector Macrae perhaps suffering from longterm PTSD? Jessie Youghal’s anxiety about money and her resentment of her brother are real enough. And Simon Telfer may be destined for a war zone for which Malaya is a cover.
But none of that can really distract us from Linklater’s smartly amused dissection of Edinburgh society and the dour aspect of Scottish Presbyterian propriety and respectability. Overall, this is a joyous read, and one that celebrates a lust for life even if its central character is a selfish reprobate.
I used to own a copy of ‘The Merry Muse’ (Burns’ collection of lewdnesses), but I grew tired of it, so the second hand market has had the pleasure of my copy’s company for many a year.
However, the idea that Linklater proposes, that a copy of ‘The Merry Muse’ turns up as part of the estate of Maxwell Arbuthnot’s life-denying dominie brother-in-law together with a sheaf of papers in Burns’ hand that appear to be poems of a libidinous originality of stupendous lubricity, tickled me pink. The publication date of 1959 must have made it a fruity sensation for a society on the verge of the 1960s and Penguin’s paperback publication of ‘Lady Chatterley’.
From this opening gambit proceeds an Ealing comedy styled in Linklater’s fluent, easy, playful prose and characterised by his appetite for comedic, as well as straight, characterisation. Max Arbuthnot is a self-satisfied, hedonistic and lusty barrister with as large an appetite for good wine and food as he has for extra-marital sex; Mr Greenshaw is a pedantic but conscientious librarian; Jessie Youghal, Max’s sister, is a repressed widow with a scarcely justifiable grudge against her brother, and is persistently shrill in pursuing Max’s promise to sell her copy of ‘The Merry Muses’ for £10,000 to secure her financial future; her sister, Annie, by contrast, has as much an appetite for living as her brother does. And then there are some shenanigans that go on between the angst-ridden poet/playwright, Hector Macrae, and Max’s married daughter, Jane, whose husband, Simon Telfer, is about to lead his Edinburgh regiment out to Malaysia. And all this is further complicated by Paula, Jane’s former beastly school prefect who is angling after becoming Max’s mistress...
Yet the comedy is not without its serious edge. Is Hector Macrae perhaps suffering from longterm PTSD? Jessie Youghal’s anxiety about money and her resentment of her brother are real enough. And Simon Telfer may be destined for a war zone for which Malaya is a cover.
But none of that can really distract us from Linklater’s smartly amused dissection of Edinburgh society and the dour aspect of Scottish Presbyterian propriety and respectability. Overall, this is a joyous read, and one that celebrates a lust for life even if its central character is a selfish reprobate.
Want to read
January 19, 2010found on my book shelf
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews